Ideologies

Watching a video of Glen Beck of Prager University talking about how in Socialist Ideology, your children are not “yours”, they belong to everyone (the State). I can pick several flaws in Mr Becks theories, but as I always say, good Scientific Theory relies on constant attack to either bolster or negate a theory. We should never attack the Theorist, Mr Beck was kind enough to put his theory “out there” for debate, but I see some commenter’s are resorting to ad hominen attacks on the theorist.

I accept his theory that Socialism sees children as being “community property”, but it’s not just Socialists who believe this. Sociology and Eugenics also believe this. Many governments are also starting to take the view that children are State “Property” and making laws accordingly. In 2011 in Ireland we had a “Children’s Referendum” which supposedly gave children a magical set of rights that they didn’t previously possess. They didn’t pull these rights out of thin air, they took these rights away from parents to be able to vindicate for the rights of their children. Most people voted yes to amending Art 42 of the Irish Constitution, many not realising that a countries constitution serves to protect the people from the government. The Irish have a dismal history in referendums, having given away Irish Sovereignty and Autonomy and creating the “United States of Europe”.

I spoke at great length about “Rights” in the book and how we don’t actually benefit from having Civil and Human Rights. When our rights are being abused, the usual suspect is the State itself. In Ireland we took away parents rights to vindicate rights for their children and gave it to the State. They even took away children’s rights to vindicate for themselves. So essentially, when the State abuses a child by denying them a Civil, Human or Constitutional Right, the State will also vindicate those rights against the State. If Human Rights existed, we wouldn’t need Human Rights lawyers and courts.

One of the inaccuracies in Mr Becks theory is that Sweden separates children from their parents in exchange for education, but this is factually incorrect. While this might actually be Swedish Policy, and I don’t honestly know the answer, it is simply not enforced. I would agree with him that Socialists have the utopian view of everyone working together as a society and that “it takes a community to raise a child”, but what’s lacking in his thesis is that this particular ideology has it’s root in Eugenics and Sociology, and probably pre-dates that in other ideologies.

Here’s what Mr Beck is missing:

“Family is an outdated concept with it’s vestiges in our tribal roots”

This is straight out of the Eugenics Manual and later adopted by Social Work. Your children are not “yours”. However what’s missing from this ideology is one important factor;

“Children are not Autonomous Beings and are incapable of making important decisions for themselves”

Someone must feed, clothe, bathe, nurture, educate and make decisions for children, they become more autonomous as they grow, but even in early adulthood they need support. The difference between the “Community” and Parents raising a child, is that the parent makes all decisions out of Love. “Best Interests doesn’t love any child, parents do”.

Thousands of years of Human Evolution designed the most perfect Child Protect System imaginable, the Family. 99.999% of children are very well protected by Parents. Almost any parent would die to save their child, many have. There are not very many examples in history of “Communities” saving, or even raising children with any degree of success. When we look at the “Care” System in most countries we see a failing ideology which harms more children that it helps, albeit with the best intentions and by otherwise good people who only want to help.

Social Work strives to go against Nature and replace it. 50 Years of Social Work is no match for what Nature and Human Evolution has achieved. Of course there are a few bad parents, but there are also bad social workers and bad judges and bad foster “carers”. 50 Years of “Pop Psychology” and “Flavour-of-the-Month” parenting advise and Social Work Intervention, has no proven history of success. Opportunists preying on the fears of parents who want to do the best for their child have caused more damage. There isn’t a single scientific experiment to prove any “Social Experiment”, Social Work has no history of excellence, ever. That is not to say that Sociology has no value, social workers who intervene with clients and have no power to prosecute them, ie; Family Court, can make a huge difference in peoples lives. It is impossible for anyone to have the joint role of Advocate/Prosecutor as the roles are completely incompatible.

I take Mr Becks point that Socialism has no history of success. Many proponents of Socialism claim that it hasn’t been done properly and that’s why it has failed. I would urge some of these people to move to Cuba if they really believe Socialism is some form of utopia. Having visited Havana and many former Soviet Republics I can say not many people who have lived under these dictatorships or still do, millions of people know that Socialism has little value. While the aspirations of Socialism are good and altruistic in most cases, in practice it could not work.

The simple fact is that you cant replace Nature. We have a built-in Child Protection instinct in all of us and most of the time it works. Nature makes us protect people more vulnerable and only narcissists and damaged people go against their human instincts. There are dangerous ideologies in Right Wing and Left Wing politics and anyone straying from Conservatism is a radical. Extremists  hate “Welfare Recipients”. The radicals among us in every ideology whine and wonder why they should have to pay to raise other people’s children or other vulnerable people, not thinking ahead to the day when they could, in fact will, become vulnerable themselves and the people making decisions for them will be the people they paid (or didn’t pay) to raise, support and educate.

By any standard you choose, you really cant beat Nature. Eugenics has never worked and never will because it goes against Nature. The Lebensborn Program has never worked even though it has been tried in many countries, not just Germany.  We need to be on-guard against any ideology that doesn’t support Nature. 

Here is the Prager University video on Facebook, I’m not sure if everyone can access it, I couldn’t find it on YouTube.

Joe

Babysitter Wanted. $10,000 per week, per child. Apply Within.

How much do Nannies get paid working for billionaires? I would imagine that highly skilled Nannies would be highly paid. The cream tends to rise to the top in any profession and remuneration is often commensurate with experience and capability.

A few years ago in Ireland, with budget cuts, the standard rate for Residential “Care” was dropped from 8,000 Euro to 5,000 Euro. There are a few exceptions, but let’s just concentrate on 5,000/month/child. I wrote in the book that for 5K/month, I could send the child to prestigious schools normally attended by the rich and famous, I could send them to Oxford, Harvard or MIT to get a Doctorate degree, and still have enough money left to buy them a house, car and pay for their wedding, even though the payments stopped at age 18. Of course I am exaggerating and mocking Residential “Care”, but do billionaires spend that much on their children?

When you consider that many children are raised in “father absent homes”, with or without Child Maintenance being paid, that many of these children will go on to higher education and secure high-paying jobs. Contrast that with “Care” Alumni , especially Residential “Care”, and you’ll see that “Care” ends on their 18th Birthday. The euphemism social workers use is “Emancipation” or “Ageing-out of care”, a sanitised term for “dumping children on the streets”. Would you dump your 18 year old? Would any politician or judge who placed a child in “Care” leave an 18 year old to fend for themselves without family support?

Naturally, there will be some children who have been horribly abused, in home or in “care”, who will need intensive care. We know, or at least should know, that according to crime statistics, that such cases requiring intensive measures are few and far between. But bear in mind the care might need to be given from 0 to 18 and beyond in exceptional cases.

In Ireland when the budget cuts hit, one operator threatened to cut 220 jobs, because apparently for 4,800/week, you get little better than a babysitting service. I have the excerpt from the article below;

“Last year, the company was paid €9.6 million by the HSE. Dr Gargan said the cost depended on the level of intervention required and that one-on-one care (one staff member per child), at a cost of €4,800, was little more than “a babysitting service”.”

The full article can be found here;

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/health/220-jobs-threatened-at-care-units-for-children-172153.html

It would appear from putting 2 + 2 together, I may be wrong, but they found a way out of this impasse; paying for empty beds;

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/vacant-beds-for-children-in-care-cost-taxpayer-20m-1.1769338

Which begs the question, where are these empty beds when judges are looking to place a child?

https://www.childlawproject.ie/publications/no-secure-care-bed-for-troubled-boy/

We have seen a trend in many countries where companies who provide prisons and security services to governments, are now turning their attention to “Care” for children. Relatively small operators cant make a profit at 5K, but big operators want to get in on the action? I don’t have the figures for all jurisdictions for Foster “Care” versus Residential “Care”, but in Ireland each year we spend 100 million a year of Foster and another 100 million on Residential. About 90% of children are in Foster, and 10% in Residential “Care”. If you think about it, the government takes children away and then “Outsources” the job to the Private Sector. If you look at Foster “Care”, much of it is a “Cottage Industry”, and it’s tax-free money. I lived close to a house where 4 children were in “Care”. The children were her sisters who was apparently not capable of raising them. I haven’t touched on Kinship Care in my blogs yet, but I suggested in the book that it should be the first option to be considered.

So there you have it folks, 5 grand a week per child. You or I could work miracles with that money, but all the taxpayer can expect is a babysitting service. Residential “Care” doesn’t produce high achievers, they are often given troubled children who were moved on from foster home to foster home. It wouldn’t be unusual for these children to have had 10, 20 or 30 different social workers from birth to 18. Many children in Foster “Care” will remain after 18, none will remain in Residential “Care” except disabled or other exceptional case.

The problems for these children when they are “out on their own“, sorry, “Emancipated”, they are unable to fend for themselves. They end up homeless, jobless, on drugs  in prison, crisis pregnancy and otherwise have poor outcomes. I don’t wish for a minute mean to describe these children as criminals or “damaged”, or less than any other 18 year old. There are many success stories of the few that succeeded, but for the majority, life is tough when you don’t have support. The next time you see a homeless youth on the street begging, just ask them if they were in “Care”.

The odds are stacked so far against these kids, that for them to achieve what kids living at home with their parents would be miraculous in some cases. I have met many of these children and always urged them to get in touch with their families. Many of them cant get past why their parents didn’t rescue them. Even adults resort to this juvenile thinking, they fixed an image in their minds that their parents should have fought harder or didn’t want them. Few of them know what their parents suffered and were left broken and battered by the process themselves. Often these kids have crisis pregnancies and learn fairly fast that social workers see “Care” as so damaging to children, that they are 66 times more likely to have their child removed and placed in “Care”. It’s a self-perpetuating system. One judge referred to it as; “inter-generational recidivism”.

The cycle repeats itself and continues for generation after generation. Which presumably wasn’t the objective of the exercise in the first instance, especially when you consider the cost of Residential “Care”. We are paying millions over the lifetime of these children to systematically damage them. I was reading yesterday how poverty is increasingly becoming a reason to remove children from parents. This is absolute insanity. For the sake of a few hundred or a few thousand, we end up paying millions, for a babysitting service at best.

I could go on and on and have covered it sufficiently in the book. I hope you get the idea. I keep coming back to the same point. Incompetence is the number one issue we face in many aspects of our lives, especially dealing with government. This incompetence turns to corruption when they try to cover it up. The insanity that Einstein spoke about, repeating the experiment over and over and expecting different results every time is insane. Paying outrageous sums of money to systematically damage children is insane. Taking children away for poverty or minor infractions is insanity if it costs us more money and causes more harm.

I hope in these blogs that people are learning something new about the system and I hope that they are passing on this information to educate others. I have always said that I encourage people to change my mind on any subject and I’m always open to debate. I don’t want to “preach to the converted” here, many of you are victims of the system in one way or another, but I want to educate people who have the power to change the system. Your help in sharing this blog, in buying the book, in sharing the information or getting you friends and family to read the book, is all that is needed to change this awful system. We can change it one person at a time. It starts with you sharing, Thanks for all your support.

Joe

 

First, Do No Harm.

I wouldn’t have  believed a baby could suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), had I not witnessed it myself. We know of infant brains that all children will experience Childhood Amnesia as a normal part of development. Babies brain are still growing and forming and their memories tend to be short term. If you don’t see a baby for a few months, they will likely forget who you are. I have known toddlers and spent many hours and weeks with them, but then they have completely forgotten me a few years later.

A baby aged 6 months who was being exclusively breast-fed, was kidnapped for 8 months by social workers. The “kidnapping” was the term the judge used in the case, not just an opinion. At Contact, like most children, he desperately wanted to see his parents and obviously knew who they were. At the end of Contact the baby, and his sibling, would cry uncontrollably for hours afterwards. When a judge ordered the family to be immediately reunited, the family spent their first few weeks together sleeping in the same bed. The children would become alarmed if one family member let the room. This is not at all uncommon in these cases.

A few months after the children came home, I stayed in the parents home, I was there almost 24/7. The baby was then 18 months old. The baby would wake up screaming in terror from naps or in the middle of the night. He would only be consoled by the arms of his mother and needed to have his father in sight. It wasn’t until he was nearly 3 that he could verbalise his terror. He woke up screaming and crying uncontrollable, he was just starting to use words at this point. When asked what he saw during his nightmares, he said; “2 Mommies” and explained that only 1 Mommy had “boobies”. His nightmares, according to the Child Psychologist, was that he was afraid that he would be taken away from his family.

Children in “Care” suffer from PTSD at twice the rate of troops returning from war zones, and at a level 4 times more severe. I know the foster carer who looked after this baby. She is a very nice lady and did her best to take care of him. She said he had nightmares while in “Care” also. Unfortunately, the baby was not weaned from the breast, and when he came home at 14 months, all his milk-teeth were rotten to such an extent that he required special dental care. This type of tooth decay according to dentists, is a result of being fed juice or sugar which rots the teeth. It seems clear the baby needed to be “drugged” with sugar to console him. He was lucky in a way because many babies and children in “Care” are given Psychotropic drugs, sometimes at adult doses or combinations of drugs that have never been tested in animals, never mind human babies. If you ask children in “care” what they want, 99.999% will tell you they want to go home. The solution that doctors take is to pull out the prescription pad and put them on ever-increasing doses and dangerous combinations.

Is it any wonder then that children when they leave “care” are more likely to be addicted to drugs, prescription or otherwise?

I’ve always found that doctors are more likely to be on the lookout for child abuse and neglect, and the majority will go above and beyond to help social workers take children away. In a few cases I have caught doctors out and threatened with reporting them to Medical Boards for practising beyond their level of training and ability. In the case of this baby, a general practitioner (GP) testified that bruises on his brother were, and could only be, the result of abuse. His testimony quickly fell apart. I also find that when I send parents to doctors offices to get medical records, they don’t want to hand them over or do everything in their power to delay. It seem to me that doctors have no issue harming children and will lie and exaggerate because they feel they are helping. I’m proud to say that I have helped many parents get their medical records and have assisted many parents in reporting them to Medical Boards. GP’s are not trained in Forensic Medicine, they are not allowed to offer a medical diagnosis or opinion in areas where they have no specific training and experience. And yet, GP’s and  Pediatricians regularly offer opinions in court which go unchallenged.

To some extent, if these children didn’t get their “Fix” from doctors, they would find other ways of dealing with their pain. Alcohol, illicit drugs, sex or other unhealthy pursuits will be sought to fill the void and ease their pain. For many, suicide is seen as an option, the suicide rate for children in “Care” is 10 times the national average. During the Vietnam War, many troops relied on drugs and there was a great concern that these troops returning from war would help create a massive drug problem. In reality, many stopped using drugs once they were removed from the battlefield. Most Addictions Counsellors and Therapists believe that the key to solving substance abuse and other addictions, is to heal the source of the pain, and then the need to use “pain relievers” disappears. Unfortunately this does not work for “Care” Alumni.

The damage done by removing a child from their family, for some children, is so devastating that we have no way of measuring it, never mind treating it. Studies of Adoption should clearly show that you can not take children from “A” and place them with “B” with no consequences. In her ground-breaking work, Nancy Verrier termed the “Primal Wound” which describes the empty space many adopted people feel.  While many are grateful for someone taking care of them when they couldn’t take care of themselves, they feel a primal need to connect with their family. The suicide rate for adopted children is 4 times the national average. While adopted children fare better that those raised in “Care”, there is still a strong argument against adoption as an option.

Drugging children in “Care” is 100% the responsibility of the doctor prescribing. Young children may not benefit from counselling or psychotherapy to the degree at adults can be helped. It has become too easy for a physician to abuse a child by prescribing drugs never intended for children, and at an unprecedented rate. Doctors get away with it because the child victims are unlikely to sue them. In many cases their parents have no say and judges endorse any action by social workers. But these parents can still report these doctors to Medical Boards, and rarely do. Not knowing your rights allows these child abusers to get away with it.

In a recent blog I gave many reasons why “Care” is dangerous for children, this is just another specific example. In the USA, probably the worst example, as many as 30% of children in “Care” are drugged. It’s important to remember though, that the children will find another way to ease their pain at being separated from their family. The worst time for most “Care” Alumni is when they are dumped on the streets at age 18. Would you dump your child at age 18?

This documentary by 20/20 was made in 2013, nothing substantial has changed since. If anything, this drug epidemic has spread to other countries but other jurisdictions are less forthcoming with this information. In every country, “Care” alumni are all suffering from the same pain, and nobody has come up with good solutions. Maybe the obvious solution is being ignored? Send them home.

Joe

Shake Baby, Shake.

Did you know that many people are prosecuted every year for a “Crime” that Science says could not possibly exist?

Shaken Baby Syndrome is junk science, not my opinion, scientific fact. A recent study of doctors found that most doctors believe that if you shake a baby, some claim only 1 shake, that this causes a “constellation” of Head Injuries known as Shaken Baby Syndrome.  Most doctors are wrong. The specific “injuries” are known as the “Triad”, specifically;

1. Subdural Bleeding. This is a specific type of bleeding in a specific area of the brain. “Sub” refers to under and “Dural” refers to the Dura Mater, one of 3 layers that surround the brain. Between the brain and the Dura Mater there are veins known as “Bridging Veins” which collect blood from the brain. The theory being that back-and-forth movement causes “shearing” of some of these veins and leads to diffused bleeding.
2. Axonal Injury. This is a very specific injury which affects Axons within the brain.
3.  Retinal Bleeding. The Retina of the eye, the “screen” on which light is focused on, has a rich blood supply. How exactly the retinal bleeding occurs during shaking has never been explained in the hundreds of medical papers written on the topic. There have been no human experiments of eyes being shaken and a specific pattern occurring. Retinal injury and detachment is fairly common in head injuries where the head, and eye, were subject to falls or where a “sudden stop” (Acceleration/Deceleration) of the eye occurred.

In many SBS cases, there is often 10 or 20 significant signs and symptoms, but often many of these are ignored as doctors focus on the Triad and if these 3 signs are present, they jump to a conclusion of Child Abuse in every case.

If you forget about the Science for a moment and look at prosecution cases, it’s interesting to note that nobody has ever been caught red-handed shaking a baby to death, or near death. Every single prosecution has been based on doctors testimony that the Triad was present. Every prosecution has relied on the fact that the caregiver was alone with the baby for even a few seconds. Once the Triad is diagnosed, Police interrogate the caregiver and Police claim that the only way these 3 signs can occur is shaking, which is factually incorrect.

Many babies have been seen on video being violently shaken, usually on nannycams or surveillance video in businesses and hospitals. None of these babies have ever had a single sign of the Triad, although there are documented cases of neck injury and sometimes bruises. On this basis alone, how could intelligent people believe an unproven hypothesis? It is virtually impossible to prove or disprove that something did not happen, you cant prove or disprove a negative or something that doesn’t exist. Leaving the science aside, what are the chances that babies who have been shaken have no Triad injuries, but where nobody witnessed the incident, it must be a violent attack?

It gets worse, in many prosecutions there are very rarely any injuries on these children, no fractured bones and hardly ever a bruise? How do you violently shake a baby? You would need to grip them very firmly, probably to the point you would leave thumb prints on the chest and finger bruises on the back? If you are going to cause brain damage, you need to exert force. Babies are fairly robust, with the exception of their necks before age 6 months, you can pick them up and rock them, which if you did to an adult, you would likely cause injury.  Look up “Baby Yoga” on YouTube and see babies being thrown around, which I wouldn’t recommend, but none of these babies are ever injured. And yet doctors believe “One Shake Theory”?

When you actually get down to the Science, experiments performed by Dr John Lloyd, a Biomechanist, performed experiments on Biofedelic Mannequins which prove beyond all scientific doubt that shaking alone cannot produce the Triad. Nobody is ever going to shake a healthy baby to see if he/she dies. The original hypothesisis of SBS was never even proven or disproven. The original hypothesist Dr Norman Gutkelch merely suggested that shaking be studied as a possible mechanism for the Triad. Others built on his theory and included a study in the 1940’s where adult monkeys were purposely “rammed” back and forth until they died and this flawed experiment became the basis for Shaken Baby Syndrome.

In a way, Dr Gutkelch’s suspicions made sense. For years babies died with the Triad, and nobody knew why, these death were written off as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, which isn’t an actual cause of death, it’s just a label they apply when they don’t know the cause of death. But Dr Norman never said that if you shake a baby it causes the Triad, he merely suggested it as a possible cause for further study. The only actual studies have been Biomechanical Studies, and each one proved that shaking doesn’t cause the Triad. SBS has never been anything more than a hypothesis. In fact for years Dr Gutkelch spent much of his time defending families accused of SBS, right up until he died in 2016 at the age of 100 years. He said many times that he wished he had never suggested it.

You cant experiment on babies, it would be highly unethical. But funnily enough, the Dr Lloyd study does include some interesting data on a live baby (his son Kieran), who was playing in his Fisher Price Jumperoo while Dad was watching him. Dad placed sensors on Kieran’s head and baby thrashed about, for hours apparently in his Jumperoo. The data showed that a baby “shaking” himself, can produce the same amount of force of Acceleration as a Biofedelic Mannequin being violently shaken by an athletic male, a whole football team actually. Interestingly, this is the only ever Human Study of shaking a baby.

Biomechanics is the Science of how forces act on the human body. No Physician is qualified to testify in court on whether an injury occurred or did not occur as a result of mechanical forces on the body. It is a highly specialized field which incorporates Engineering with Medicine. We wouldn’t let Doctors do Transportation Studies as they are simply not trained or qualified. Crash Test Dummies, or by their proper title, Biofedelic Mannequins, are specially designed by teams of experts and are about as “Real” as you can get.

Some proponents of SBS have tried to undermine Biomechanical Studies and write-off mannequins as “Rubber Dolls”. Biomechanics is the only scientific method of reliably making cars and transportation far safer that ever. New studies of football and motorcycle helmets are throwing out everything we ever believed about the safety of helmet. New evidence suggests that helmets may actually cause more injury, especially to the neck, and physicians are very worried that Biomechanists are disproving many widely held beliefs about the brain. This is a topic for another blogger, but I would strongly suggest that anyone concerned with contact sports or who uses helmets, to study on the latest research.

What the Biomechanical studies also showed, is that short falls can produce 12 times more force than the most vigorous shaking. This is where it gets particularly disturbing.

There are many documented cases now of doctors killing babies and accusing innocent caregivers.

The data clearly shows that a baby falling from a changing table height, can produce enough force within the brain to disrupt the Bridging Veins of the Dura Mater. Falls from a bed or a couch onto a hard surface from as little as 18 inches, can produce 12 times more acceleration than the most violent shaking.

And yet, the unproven dogma of SBS denies that short falls are harmful. You would think, just to err on the side of caution, that doctors would be strongly advising parents never to place babies, even ones too young to move themselves, on a couch or a bed or leave them unattended? The dogma believes that shaking produces the equivalent force as a fall from a 3 storey building. No evidence of this particular hypothesis has ever been produced, but this is what doctors believe. This is what they are taught in Medical School, and most doctors don’t keep current with science, especially with Biomechanical Science which is dispelling many myths they learned years ago in school. When anxious parent rush their baby who has fallen from a couch or bed, they are dismissed by doctors; “don’t worry, they taught us in medical school that this wont harm them, but don’t shake them, that can cause harm”. I have seen many cases now where parents were dismissed, and days later the baby died of the Triad and the innocent parent accused. If you read the trial transcripts or news stories, so many people have said they accidentally dropped the baby, but this is always dismissed. In a few rare cases people admitted slamming babies against a wall, but no, doctors say it was shaking. There is even a documented case of Shaken Adult Syndrome, where a drunken adult fell down the stairs and hit their head, but no, doctors again said she must have been shaken somehow, even though the patient knows exactly what happened.

Over the years I have worked on many SBS cases to one degree or another. I’m not an “Expert Witness” and have no particular qualification, but then neither are lawyers, judges or juries. I found that lawyers don’t know what questions to ask, and don’t know if the expert witness answered correctly. The usual answer of an expert is; “that’s normal”, if it doesn’t fit in with the SBS dogma. You can show them findings on the lab results or post mortem, for example Haemosidrein Pigment ( and Iron stain found on tissue which indicates previous historical bleeding) and the lawyer, judge or jury have no clue whether this is normal or not. This is where I come in. I have assisted lawyers in asking the right questions and understanding what is the correct response. In a recent case in Ireland, I saw 2 doctors lie in court. One Professor of Paediatrics, when asked by the judge whether the blood supply to the eyes was separate from the brain, he answered they were separate. Anyone who has completed High School knows that the blood supply to the brain is through the Carotid Arteries (right and left side), essentially there is only 1 artery, but the barrister or judge did not catch this.

Prosecutors must love SBS cases. If the baby dies, it must be the only case of murder where you don’t need a murder weapon or forensics, not even a witness, all you need is a doctor to say the Triad was present and you have a conviction. You could even have a video of the baby falling at a restaurant days earlier and hitting a tiled floor and having a bruise at the point of impact, but no, shaking is the only possible explanation. The chances of finding an expert witness are getting slimmer and slimmer. A few years ago a Policeman from the London MET Police suggested at an SBS Industry Conference that anyone who testifies for the defense in SBS cases should be targeted so that no defence is possible. And target these people they did. Every witness who testifies for innocent people has been targeted in one way or another. In one case, Dr Waney Squier, probably the most prominent expert on the paediatric brain at Oxford University, was reported to the General Medical Council and was subject to what many people identified as a witch hunt, and was struck off. She was reported by the MET, not surprisingly. She was reinstated by the high court and many, many people spoke out in her defence and and about the manner in which the “Inquisition” was carried out.

I could write a book on the topic, but this is a blog. The bottom line is that Shaken Baby Syndrome is junk science. Again, my opinion counts for nothing, but Scientific experiments have shown beyond all scientific doubt that SBS is quite impossible. My friend and colleague who helped me understand SBS, is probably the best authority on the subject. For years she has supported innocent caregivers and educated many people on the topic. I have personally read hundreds of scientific paper on the topic but I have never seen so much “circular arguments” or “circular thinking” on any subject. Every article written by medics presupposes that SBS exists and is accepted science. Nothing shows a single experiment of a baby being shaken or of how there are 21 known conditions that can also cause the Triad. One paper cites another paper and everyone ignore the ultimate study by Dr John Lloyd et al.

You can read or cite all the studies you want, but this is the definitive work. If this study became the definitive study that everyone accepted, we could save the lives of many babies. We could move past conspiracy theory of SBS and find the root cause. In decades of study on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, we are no further ahead other than immoveable babies should be placed on their back. Dogma is holding back science and medical advancement, worse yet, it is killing babies by believing in unproven dogma. Innocent caregivers are being jailed and the people responsible for these miscarriages of justice are doctors who are supposed to be saving lives. The study is here in pdf format. I would urge people to print off their own copies, read it and then send it on to your GP or Paediatrician;

http://www.omicsonline.com/open-access/biomechanical-evaluation-of-head-kinematics-during-infant-shaking-versus-pediatric-activities-of-daily-living-2090-2697-2-109.pdf

The colleague and world expert is Sue Luttner. She runs a website https://onsbs.com which is the definitive resource on the topic. In addition there are many Facebook pages for support for innocent caregivers accused. If you have read my other blogs, you probably begin to see threads that I have noticed in child protection. You see that conspiracy theory is widely practised, people shun Evidence Based and Scientific Theory in favour of dogmas and moral panics when it comes to “protecting” children. There is a certain mindset that is prevalent, albeit with the best intentions and with the best interests of the child at heart, but it simply isn’t working, it’s causing far more harm than good to children and we need to eliminate it if children are ever to be truly protected.

Joe

Hate the Conspiracy, but love the Theorist

I abhor Conspiracy Theory, but I pride myself on keeping an open mind on everything. I have always been fascinated by how people can take unrelated events and link them together and form a complex theory. Usually in these theories you are required to take a leap of faith at some point as the theorist did. Often the theorist didn’t think too much about this “act of faith” required, because it already fit into the narrative of their story or the conclusion they already arrived at.

I abhor conspiracy because I have spent much of my life solving simple and complex problems working in the Engineering field. I still work as a Mechanic/Technician/Engineer because I enjoy problem solving. Over the years I have studied Problem Solving Techniques and arrived at my own methodology. You have to take a very systematic approach and follow the steps. Usually the chronological history yields the clues. I have come up with a “Law” of my own which is fairly simple;

“The reason you cant solve the problem is because you don’t have enough information”.

Many people cant solve problems because they rush to a solution too early in the process. Einstein gave us a definition of “Insanity”; “to repeat the experiment over and over and expect different results every time”. If you’ve rebooted the computer once already and it didn’t work the first time, it’s not going to work the second time. It’s understandable how people repeat these mistakes, because they are not trained in Problem Solving. You can spot these amateurs easily, they get very frustrated and act out of blind faith.

I understand why Conspiracy Theory exists, I also understand why Religion exists. I am an Atheist but I will strongly defend anyone’s right to believe anything they want as long as nobody gets hurt. The problem with conspiracy is that people do get hurt. Many lives are destroyed by false allegations. My colleagues and I were accused by a legendary conspiracy theorist in Ireland, his thesis was that anyone working to help families against Social Services was actually a “State Plant” or “Insider” or “Informer”. The pinnacle of his “career” was when he named a child, his address and his school. The child was bullied to such an extent that he was assaulted and had to change schools. This was when we took action and that person is now facing prison. I may write a book on it someday, a tale of intrigue and heroism, but other than those who suffered from his abuse, 100% fiction.

Many celebrities have been falsely accused of sexual abuse over the years. Prominent people are easy targets and can have their lives and careers ruined even when they are innocent. Politicians are often targeted and in many countries there are stories of secret cabals, paedophile rings in government and Freemasons and secret societies. The Jewish Faith are often wrongly implicated.

The bottom line on these theories is that no evidence has ever been presented. That fact doesn’t seem to matter to the conspiracy theorists, they can explain away question or problem with their theories because their faith will not allow them to believe otherwise. When you point out facts to them they will still not be convinced. I put this down to 2 things, they are closed minded, and their “Religion” and “Faith” will not allow them to “believe” otherwise.

The reason I am talking about this topic, is that I regularly see conspiracy theory in Child Protection. I have seen social workers so convinced of abuse that even Judges cant get them to follow court orders. I wrote in another blog about how social workers asked the Supreme Court in California if it’s ok to lie in court to protect a child. But let me stress that conspiracy theorists are not stupid or evil people, I have said many times that “the most heroic act a human being can undertake is to save a child”.  Once someone steps into “Hero Mode”, they are not going to be convinced by facts and evidence. They get a rush of endorphins which makes them feel good, and they confuse this with the belief that they are doing the right thing.

You cant convince a conspiracy theorist that they are wrong. Nobody likes to hear that they made errors in calculations but human beings do make mistakes. The difference between the Scientific, or “Evidence Based” approach is that Science doesn’t require people to believe a theory. Science exists independent of the Scientist. A scientific theory doesn’t care what you believe or think, it just exists. A real Scientist would never call someone a “Denier”, they would encourage debate and peer-review.

I wrote a response in to the British Medical Journal which was published on their website. I was the only “layman” to have a say on the topic. I wrote about how Medicine has degenerated into a Religion, based on Faith and Belief, and I received a flood of positive responses from many professionals. Science itself has degenerated into a Religion, on many topics you will be branded a “Denier” if you don’t agree with the “Consensus”. My issue with accepting dogma probably has a great deal to do with the fact that try as I may, I cannot believe that there is an “Invisible Man in the Sky” controlling everything. I respect the views of religious people and I’m sorry to say that I have not been gifted with “Faith” as they have.

Anytime you hear people labelling other “Deniers” or “Conspiracy Theorists”, you are hearing from people who are Anti-Science. In Science, there are no stupid questions or deniers, and no conspiracy theorists. Science encourages debate and everything remains a theory until proven otherwise. Real scientists don’t label others (with the possible exception of Social Scientists). In Scientific Peer-Review, a theory is either bolstered or invalidated by constant attack and questions. A real Scientist, or a real Conspiracy Theorist, would never label anyone, they encourage debate. Science is not about “Consensus”, if it were, the Earth would still be flat and we would not have Satellite TV, or sent people into Outer Space. It’s important that we listen to everyone and stop labelling people Conspiracy Theorists or “Deniers”. People are entitled to ask questions and the advancement of Science and the evolution of the Human Race depends on it.

This is not to say that Conspiracy Theorists don’t exist, I spoke earlier about a criminal who was so obsessed with being a hero in his own mind that he recklessly endangered a child in his quest to harm an innocent father and his family and colleagues. Everyone has the right to an opinion but nobody has the right to harm a child, or to tell lies or libel, defame or slander others. A common thread about these people is that they make their case very personal about a person rather than an act. While I’m not a fan of Jimmy Saville, it’s only fair to say that he was never convicted of any crime. He may have been guilty of many crimes, but the time to raise these issues was while he was still alive and could be held accountable in court before a jury of his peers. A dead man is a very easy target.

In my work helping people I have often taken on cases of Medical Misdiagnosis. As a former Paramedic I understand Medicine fairly well. In the cases I take, I work backwards and have the luxury of researching anything I don’t understand. Doctors often have to act in emergencies and have to resort to educated guesses to save lives, mistakes under these circumstances are acceptable, we all make mistakes. The problem often arises when people make mistakes and are unwilling to admit making the mistake, or attempt to cover it up and blame others. Most corruption is linked to incompetence. Not even incompetence in some cases, people made genuine mistakes, but their real error was in not admitting the mistake, or worse yet, to deflect blame onto others. This is why we must always keep an open mind on everything, nobody can get away with telling lies forever.

I’ve already covered these topics in the book in great detail, but in the blog here I’m giving people the opportunity to engage in debate and maybe we both can learn from our discussion.

Topics I will blog about later include conspiracy theories such as;

• The myth of the Paedophile
• Shaken Baby Syndrome
• Satanic Ritual Abuse
• Fractured or Recovered Memory Syndrome
• Munchausens Syndrome by Proxy
• Do Children’s “Charities” benefit children
• And a whole host of other myths

My advice to people is to debate people by debating topics, never attack the person or make it personal. Listen to everyone’s opinion, even when they attack you personally, continue debating. You are not going to change a closed mind, but others viewing may not have as fixed views and you may change their minds. Yes, there are real Conspiracy Theorists and some of them are a danger to others. It’s best not to engage with dangerous people, you will become their next target. They are heroes in their own mind and have no issue with using slander, libel and defamation as a weapon against you. Once you are labelled there is no coming back, other idiots would rather believe lies than face the truth.

“Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant, they too have their story”. This is a rule we can all live with, I’m sure if many of us were true conspiracy theorists, we would still be stuck in the Middle Ages, as many societies still are today. Take everything you see, read or hear with a grain of salt, a little investigation and fact-checking can save you time and embarrassment. It’s ok to be embarrassed, it’s ok to make mistakes as long as you hold up your hand and admit it. It’s not ok to cover up mistakes, people get hurt by lies and liars will always be found out.

No folks, the Jews are not running the world, a little fact checking will show you that Jews are less than 0.03% of the world population. Yes, Jews started banks, and Hollywood, and many Media organizations. Yes, Jews are a very exceptional race and can be credited with many scientific and medical advances, but to think that Jews are a race of super-human beings is ridiculous. Their culture and ethics have advanced the world far beyond any other group, race or religion, but there are no secret cabals or agendas. No, the State of Israel was not taken from Arabs, the Palestinian State of Jordan was created a year before the State of Israel. More Jews were dispossessed of land than Arabs in the division of the British Mandate, 77% of which went to Arabs. It’s amazing how much misinformation exists on this topic, and I raise it as an example of how people are fooled by propaganda.

No, Satanic Ritual Abuse doesn’t exist, at least it never existed before 1980 when a book entitled “Michelle Remembers” was published. There is nothing in recorded history anywhere to prove SRA or Fractured or Recovered Memory Syndrome existed before this book was published. But many people still believe it. During the Moral Panics that these books created in the 1980’s, Social Workers and Psychologists were pushing their “child abuse is at epidemic proportions” agenda and many people were suckered into believing it. Even though every Police Force in the world has desperately sought evidence of SRA, not one single scrap of evidence has ever been found, ever. SRA started the McMartin Preschool Trial in the USA, the longest, most expensive trial ever, but it resulted in no convictions.

There have been many Witch Hunts over the centuries where people set themselves up as heroes and strung together fantastic tales to condemn others. Even the Salem Witch Trials began as a Child Protection issue. But we must remember that the citizens of Salem were good, God-fearing people who could only explain the delusions they saw in terms of their religion. Their faith in the Devil was as strong as their faith in God. This is why Consensus, and turning Science into a Religion based on Faith is highly dangerous. The citizens of Salem were suffering from a substance like LSD which formed on their crops and when they saw a woman sweeping her porch with a broom, these people, who didn’t drink alcohol and didn’t use psychotropic drugs, and had no experience of this, saw women flying through the air propelled by broomsticks. As a result they could only explain this as a result of the Devil, who in their minds was a real as God.

So you see there are patterns with Conspiracy Theorists. When we set ourself up as heroes saving children or families, or people in general we believe to be vulnerable, we are fulfilling an instinct in all of us to protect others. Many will get a release of endorphins and its not hard to understand why otherwise good people set themselves up as “Paedophile Hunters” and create crime by enticing and entrapping men who have a perverted interest in having sex with children, by fooling them into believing that they are meeting a child to have sex. They are essentially creating the crime which might not have otherwise happened. Many people say it is wrong for Police to entrap people, but the same people would have no issue with unqualified and untrained people taking the law into their own hands if the end result is catching a “paedophile”. I am no apologist for child abusers, but what makes these Paedophile Hunters any different from the Witch Hunters of Salem who killed innocent people? Throughout history, Vigilantes, or people masquerading as such, have done horrendous damage to others. I don’t understand the arrogance of people who set themselves above the Law, whether they are Social Workers or ordinary citizens. Most Policemen/women would give their lives and their careers to expose a “Cabal” and it’s idiotic to think that every single police force in the world is part of a big conspiracy.

The problem with conspiracy is that it often requires large groups of people to cover up a massive secret that the public can never know about. I don’t believe that such a group exists anywhere on this planet, who carried off a massive event. I don’t believe it because humans make mistakes, humans have a conscience and we never see death-bed confessions of participants.  You would have to believe that every single Policeman/woman on the planet is corrupt which is extremely unlikely. I don’t believe it because I don’t believe that humans are competent enough to carry out such a plan.

What annoys me is the fact that there are many children being harmed in documented cases, but few people are doing anything about it. Why bother with fictional, unproven theories when there are so many actual cases that we should be doing something about? We know, or at least should know that “Care” is a dangerous place for children. Why aren’t these vigilantes doing something about the children who are being “groomed” in “Care”, or have an interest in them when they are dumped on the streets at age 18 when the State no longer “cares” about them? Would you dump your child on the streets at age 18? Would you alienate your child from the rest of their family and not allow them to have a relationship with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents? When you pass a homeless youth on the street, ask them if they were in “Care”, I’ll bet in most cases they were. As long as we stray away from Science and resort to turning everything into a Religion based on faith and consensus, we will still have conspiracy theorists. No, there is no great secret conspiracy, there are only humans making mistakes and creating corruption by attempting to cover it up. The Truth is less interesting than Fiction.

Joe

Let’s Have A Seance

I described in the book what it was like at my first Family Court case, I described it as a Seance. Social workers were channelling the spirits of “What If’s” and “Probable” and “Maybe If”. If such a display had taken place in an open Criminal Court, it would have rightly been on the front page of every major newspaper in the world. But of course this was Family Court, an Alternate Universe.

I am currently reading a 350 page report into why Police removed children in emergency circumstances. Irish Police (Gardai) have the power under S12 of the Childcare Act. Police can enter any home , property or vessel if they reasonably believe a child to be in danger, and remove the child to a place of safety. This is a very necessary and useful piece of legislation and Police all over the world have similar powers.

The report was commissioned because of a lack of confidence that arose in Police removing children unnecessarily in 2 cases in particular, where police removed 2 white, blue-eyed blond children from Romanian nationals. At the time of these removals, there was a case published internationally of how foreign police force found a child who looked nothing like their “parents”. DNA Tests proved the child was not theirs, unlike the children removed in Ireland who DNA proved to be the offspring of their parents.

For one of the Roma children removed in Ireland, it was published that the child was severely traumatised by the event, the child died their hair black so they looked like their parents, presumably to prevent future kidnappings. Despite the fact that the High Court awarded damages, no fault was found with the police taking this action. Public opinion at the time wasn’t as supportive. Obviously, there was a Moral Panic around at the time due to the case of the child who was obviously kidnapped. The old wives tale of gypsies (Roma) stealing babies is alive and well and living in Ireland.

What I thought funny about the whole thing, other than the obvious trauma to the kidnapped children, I thought, “But what about Adopted Children who look nothing like their Adopters?”

A theme that seems to run through the 350 page report, and in the whole sphere of Child Protection itself, is that it’s ok to remove children on nothing more than suspicion. I’ve written in great detail about this in the book and don’t want to repeat myself, but why traumatise a child on nothing more than suspicion?

I also titled on chapter “How’s that working for you Dr Phil?” and I mentioned that Dr Phil said he would rather see 1,000 children removed if it prevents that one child “swinging in the breeze”. Really Phil? You want to traumatise 999 children on the off-chance it may save one? You want to make the system 999 times more expensive than it needs to be? I also wrote about “At Risk” which is a theory that something “may” (or equally may not) happen at some point in the future.

So it should be clear that when it comes to Child Law, people are willing to abuse the child on the off-chance that we may be saving them. In Criminal Law, which is predicated on the belief that 10 guilty men go free before 1 innocent man is convicted, we go out of our way to protect murderers and rapists rights, even letting some off on technicalities, but in Child Law that’s ok. In Child Law the parent is assumed guilty until proven innocent, and often the cases and system are so stacked against the parent that you cant prove your innocence.

They regularly abuse children because we think we are helping. As I have said many times; “There is no more heroic act than to save a child”. We mistake feeling good with believing we are doing the right thing. Hell, let’s take 1,000 children away, 1 of them may have been abused.

What is becoming clear from reading the 350 page report, is that the focus is on being a hero and saving a child, and not on how that child will suffer trauma if they had been wrongly removed. Yes, most of the children in the report needed to be removed. I support removing children from drunks and heroin addicts and any case where a child is in imminent danger. I do not support removing children on mere suspicion.

The report itself is authored by a person who writes most of these reports. Even making allowances for the usual biases the author shows, it still shows a deeply flawed belief that it is legal and morally acceptable to traumatise a child by wrongly removing them from their parents. The law itself is quite clear, you can remove a child in danger and take them to a place of safety. The only caveat is that the danger to the child must be established. If the danger cannot be established the child must be handed back to caregivers. Obviously a drunk caregiver places a child in danger. Obviously if children are wandering the streets they are in obvious danger and the situation warrants further investigation.

Mere suspicion is just cause for intervention, it is not evidence, it is only cause for further investigation and gathering evidence to make a case. Looking at the report it states that many children were removed by Police on nothing more than suspicion. This is well defined in Human Rights Law, it’s called Punishment Without Crime. It’s also classified as Torture in many cases, and the use of Coercion in many other cases is also contrary to Human and Civil Rights. And yet, many children are in “care” on the basis of nothing more than suspicion of risk of future emotional abuse.

When you look at statistics of Child Abuse and Neglect, both of which are crimes, you have to wonder about the vast differences between children removed and placed in “care”, and the number of Criminal Prosecutions for Abuse and Neglect. A friend of mine came up with a statistic that for every 184 children removed to “Care” for child abuse and neglect, there is only one criminal prosecution, how is this possible?

Many times in posts to news stories online I have pointed out that in Ireland, that every year “charities” claim that there are thousands of children sexually abused in Ireland. Every year the Child and Family Agency have about 550 “confirmed” cases of sexual abuse and presumably at least 550 children removed from parents, and yet, the Director of Public Prosecutions has only 40 prosecutions a a year. I find this staggering that 550 children have been confirmed to be abused, but only a fraction of people are prosecuted. I have pointed this out many times to no avail, even at a Press Conference. I also pointed it out to the Children’s Minister and the body responsible for investigating the Child and Family Agency. Are they letting off 500 Paedophiles a year, or are they “confirming” sexual abuse that never occurred?

I could go on ad nauseum about this topic, but I believe I covered it well in the book. The biggest dangers I see to children is Indifference and Public Opinion. We have no issues taking a child away on mere suspicion, not realising the damage it does to the child who didn’t need to be removed. Essentially we can abuse 999 children on the off-chance that 1 has been abused. It makes us feel like a hero to save a child and damn the consequences for the child, we were acting in their “Best Interest” and nobody can blame us.

What I found lacking in the report was any mention of the many kidnappings or attempted kidnappings by social workers “invoking” S12 even though they have no power to do so. I know of several cases of attempted kidnappings of newborns at hospitals. We had instructed the parents in these cases on the law and successfully thwarted efforts of the social workers to remove the newborns. S12 gives an Irish Policeman/woman (Garda) to remove a child in danger, the difficulty for the Police in these cases would have been for them to establish what danger a newborn could be at, in a hospital surrounded by doctors, nurses and staff. In these cases the Police instructed the social workers to follow the law and to go to court and justify their case before a judge.

There is another case of a kidnapping by social workers that occurred 9 years ago which presumably was beyond the scope of this report. I say “kidnapping” in the legal meaning as it has already been established by the Supreme Court that children in this case were taken unlawfully. In this case the children were returned after many months and the judge in the lower court called it a kidnapping. After years of fighting the State admitted fault, of course without a public admission of fault, and agreed to pay a paltry sum in damages, which were never actually paid. The father in this case appeared by himself in court many, many times, often opposed by 7 solicitors  & barristers for the State. In the end, the State relented and admitted fault (in a Secret Court). The State then appealed their own case to the Supreme Court and successfully delayed the case for a few more years. The State basically lost in the Supreme Court, but are continuing to delay justice in the High Court.

The implications of this case are enormous for the State. It has been established that the children were kidnapped and the family want a full Police investigation into the persons who kidnapped the children. The State are blocking any attempt at justice for the family. This is in itself a crime and the State Solicitor could end up in prison if the law were properly followed. People working for the State believe they are above the law, the Supreme Court already ruled they are not. I have seen similar cases in other countries many times, these people set themselves up as heroes and above the law because “protecting” children feels good so they must be doing the right thing. I also wrote another blog about how social workers asked the Supreme Court in California if it was ok to lie in court, were they covered by immunity to prosecution if they had the “Best Interests” of children at heart.

I hope this piece gives people some insight to understand the thought processes of heroes who “protect” children. Maybe some people will also give some thought to the children who were illegally kidnapped in the case I spoke about above? I personally witnessed how the baby, when he returned from “Care”, suffered nightmares for a few years after and would wake up screaming thinking that someone would kidnap him again from his family. Maybe these heroes will try to dismiss the fact that the other child was contemplating suicide at the age of 6 and desperately wanted to return to his innocent parents. Maybe a Human Rights body somewhere will take an interest in the torture endured by this family and see how the State intervention caused catastrophic to a loving family?

The full report can be found here.

Joe

A House divided by itself cannot stand.

I am a regular user of Facebook. I subscribe to many “anti-CPS” pages because I get news of stories happening to children all over the world. Inevitably many people on these pages are very angry, frightened and can only see their own cases. I can empathize with this, no parent should have to grieve for a living child.

But let’s be realistic, if you saw a child in danger, what would you do?

I’m reading a 350 page report on why Irish Police removed children and how most of those children ended up in State “Care”. Alcohol and drugs were a factor in many cases. Police or neighbours see infants and young children wandering the streets, neighbours hear a child crying next door and have seen their mother go out for the night and leave the child alone. Police get called to schools, hospitals and doctors offices because children show up with cuts or bruises. I don’t think any reasonable human being would have an issue with these children being removed. If you or I saw a child in danger we would act to protect the child too.

As I’ve said many times; “there is no more heroic act than to save a child”. This is instinctive in all people and even animals. Child Protection needs to exist, of that there is no doubt. My issues are with what happens these children once they are “protected”. Many people call for an end to CPS, but what are we going to replace it with? This is a complex issue but there are solutions I have suggested in the book.

There is an ever-increasing awareness that Child Protection is not working to the benefit of children. There may be some evil people out there working in CPS, but the vast majority are good people with the best intentions. The issue is that Best Intentions don’t translate into Best Outcomes for 80% of “Cared For” children.

I have no personal interest in this topic and no axe to grind, I want to see children being protected. Most people affected by CPS have a particular area that they focus on, Fathers Rights, Family Court Injustice, Parental Rights, Family Law Reform, Children’s Rights or Wrongly Accused Persons.

The simple reason we can’t reform the Child Protection System is because we cant work together. 

Many people are working through their own grief and pain, and can’t see the benefit of working together. It’s a lot to ask a grieving parent, or a child grieving for their parent, to get behind Fathers Rights or Parental Alienation groups. Many social workers handle as many as 25 cases, some more urgent than others. When you see how many parents and children are affected by CPS, you can see that we outnumber the Child Protection Industrial Complex by a factor of at least 10 to 1.

I wrote a blog about how I attended a protest, and how we had a huge impact on the system. Regardless of how we work together, it’s important to realize that the system is not going to change overnight. It’s also important to see that a victory in Ireland can mean a similar victory in Australia, Norway or the USA. People in one jurisdiction forget about people suffering the same fate in other places. There are slight differences in the law and the Modus Operandi from one place to the next but the bottom line is the same for every child.

A few years ago I tried setting up an international charity to reform CPS. It would have operated in 4 countries to begin with. This would be a huge international lobby with many professionals on board. One webpage for every country and everyone working together. If there was a particular issue in Texas, they would have the support of Canada, USA, United Kingdom and Ireland. There is strength in numbers and a lobby with many people behind it, working in a very structured and professional way, would have a huge influence.

I had people on board in 4 countries, I had funding, I had the bureaucracy organized, but I couldn’t get key people working together. Whether it was because of ego’s or people promoting their own agendas doesn’t matter, it failed. You can see this failure yourself on Facebook, search CPS and you will find thousands of pages with millions of people on their own page, with their own agendas, but accomplishing nothing positive. People in pain promoting their own cases and looking for help, but not finding it. Just imagine if there was only one page for everyone in the world affected by this?

In the end I just decided to write the book as a way of educating people. I’m still heavily involved in individual cases but I have come to realize that the way forward is not to criticize the system, but to build a better one. I now see more value in promoting Parental Alienation Laws in every country, because such laws would prevent social workers alienating children from their parents and families. There is little point in engaging in individual cases because my colleagues and I have had a far more positive impact by educating professionals. I have refused invitations to go on radio or attend conferences, which often turn into “Bitch Sessions” where people complain, but accomplish nothing positive.

My colleagues and I have written academic papers and engaged in debate with people who have to the power to change the system. I could spend hundreds of hours attending a protest and feel good for participating, but accomplish nothing. I have already seen positive results from courts where judges have quoted my colleagues almost verbatim. If you put forward a well-reasoned question or argument, people will engage with you. It’s futile on the internet to argue with someone with fixed views on a topic, but you should argue anyway, because people who haven’t made up their minds will also be reading it and you have an opportunity to educate.

I don’t have answers or solutions to all the problems I see, I am of the opinion that if everyone worked together, we could dramatically change Child Protection to the point that children would be properly protected. In the absence of a solution to get people working together, I will continue what I’m doing.

If anyone has a better solution, now would be a good time to express it. A house divided by itself cannot stand.

Joe

“At Risk”

Did you know that in the UK that 72% of Forced Adoptions of children are based solely on “Risk of Future Emotional Abuse”? Risk is like saying that something may, or equally may not, happen at some point in the future. Can you imagine a policeman asking a judge for an arrest and detention warrant based on the premise that they believe a man “may” at some point in the future, rob a bank or murder someone? They would be laughed out of court and Human and Civil Rights Groups would be up-in-arms at the mere suggestion. And yet, the most draconian punishment a parent can suffer is to have their child removed and they will never see them again. No parent should ever have to grieve for a living child.

I’m reading a story from the USA about how children are dying at an alarming rate in State “Care”. What the writer doesn’t seem to realise is that children in State “Care” in every jurisdiction die at a far higher rate than children in the general population. In the UK the incidence of a child dying in “Care” is officially 4 times the normal rate, this was published by CAFCAS. Ireland has no official rate but I would estimate it to be 6 times. In some US jurisdictions it is 10 times.

Isn’t the point of taking a child away from a supposedly bad parent that they at least come out of the process at age 18 alive? In Ireland we know from a university study of child suicide, that a child in Irish State “Care” is at 10 times the national average risk of suicide. So if a child is “at risk” of emotional abuse with a parent, why is the suicide rate considerably lower with parents than in “Care”?

When you look at other statistics for “Cared For” children, regardless of jurisdiction, you clearly come to the conclusion that “Care” is an extremely dangerous place. So if we stopped taking children away and placing them in “Care” on the basis of “Risk”, we can only assume that many children could be saved from imminent death?

Adopted children fare slightly better, their suicide rate is “only” 4 times the national average. This may be due to the high failure rate of adoption, 1 in 4 for older-aged children. When an adoption fails, the child is dumped back in “Care”. Can you imagine parents dumping 1 in 4 of their children? Adoption is not the panacea many people believe it to be.

But let’s get back to “Risk”. When the State removes a child, the Social Worker should become the person responsible for the welfare of the child. In truth nobody is responsible. It’s not unusual for a child to be moved from foster home to foster home and have a regular change of social worker from 0 to age 18. Good social workers don’t want to work in Child “Protection”, in every jurisdiction the turnover of staff is far higher than any other area of the practice. Good social workers got into the profession to be Advocates and not prosecutors of parents and children.

The other problem with “Risk” is that social workers are working with very flawed tools such as Sociology and wouldn’t recognise a danger to children if they sat in the living room and watched it happen. What should have been the principle learning of the Baby P Fiasco, is that social workers are not capable of determining which children are at “Risk” or even in actual danger. In a similar case in Ireland known as the Roscommon House of Horrors, children were horribly abused and neglected. Despite social workers being involved for 11 years with the family, they didn’t see the threshold to intervention being met. There have been hundreds of similar cases that you will never hear about including deaths that could have been prevented if social workers were actually capable of protecting children.

The truth is that we know for certain that “Care” places children at far higher risk than leaving children with parents. This can be proven statistically, especially when you look at Outcomes and Suicide Rates. I also know of many cases when social workers refused to act and children died. So when we talk about risk, it should be clear that the highest risk to children is social workers. While they like to say they are damned if they do and damned if the don’t, the reality is that they fail in most cases, and they are only damned when they fail.

I gave a talk recently and I reminded people that 1 child had died in Irish State “Care” last week and another child is due to die next week. This pattern will repeat itself in every jurisdiction where social workers are at the hub of “protecting” children. The pattern repeats itself because social workers take away children on the basis of risk of future emotional abuse, and then go on to abuse those children in “Care” by keeping them at higher risk.  If social workers didn’t use such flawed methodology such as the “Thought Police” approach to protecting children, those children would never be exposed to actual risk in “Care”. The longer we delay fixing this awful system, the more children will die in “Care”.

Joe

Why Women’s Shelters are a Massive Failure

I wrote in the book about Domestic Violence, it’s history and current situation. It’s important for readers to understand that my opinion on the topic stems from 1982 when I was a volunteer for a Women’s Crisis Centre, I have been following the topic closely ever since.

In 1982 I was told that Domestic Violence was all the man’s fault, end of story. In 1983 I was booted out of the shelter for asking the question; “why do these women go from one abusive partner to the next?”

In 1982 it was widely accepted that 1 in every 19 women was a victim of DV, today the figure is 1 in 3. In 35 years, if their figures are accurate, violence against women has grown exponentially. If their figures are to be believed, and they should not, this should be the only proof necessary that Women’s Shelters have done nothing but make the problem worse.

What is actually closer to the truth is that it was never 1 in 19 women. A fairly respectable survey in 1984 by a radio host showed the number to be closer to be 1 in 137 of the women surveyed. The survey didn’t have a large sampling size and was only conducted in 1 city, but I would trust the survey as other surveys done by this group were always in the ballpark.

Nobody conceived at the time that men could be victims too, because these men should “grow a pair” and “Man Up”, but the truth we are discovering now is that men are probably abused more, by some estimates 72%, than women.

I do not for one minute want to suggest that Domestic Violence is acceptable for anyone or to minimise the issue. Most women who were murdered were killed by their partner. Most murders are “Crimes of Passion” or the victim is killed by a family member or someone known to the victim. What I do wish to do is point out that if the Domestic Violence Industry had been doing  a proper job all these years, they could have wiped out DV in one generation.

From what I witnessed in the shelter in 1982, children learn about relationships from their parents. In an abusive home a little boy grows up thinking it’s his job to control his partner and a little girl grows up needing to be controlled. In many cases I have dealt with over the years I have seen this pattern repeat and repeat. Women leave an abusive partner and then go find another abusive partner. The same for men, they abuse every woman they have a relationship with. The partners who didn’t grow up in a DV home don’t tend to find other abusers. It should be clear that this is learned behaviour in many cases but it can also be unlearned. I started a self-help group for men in 1984, to date, I have never heard of a Treatment Program for women, ever. The local shelter refused to fund or support it in any way so I funded it myself. Why wouldn’t the shelter want to see abusive men getting treatment? Why is it that no shelters have any treatment programs for men or women? Don’t they want to stamp out DV?

Because the Domestic Violence Industry was hijacked by radical feminists when Erin Pizzey opened the first DV Shelter in the world, they have clung to the dogma that DV is “all the man’s fault”, and they still cling to that today.  I have only ever heard of ONE Men’s Shelter, but it closed soon after opening. 4 out of 5 suicides are men, too many of these men are victims of women, or victims of abusive parents who were in a DV relationship.

The bottom line is that DV is treatable and preventable. There will always be Psychopaths and Sociopaths and violent criminals, but this is another issue. For treatment to be successful both men and women need to be treated by a skilled therapist. I sincerely doubt that 1 in 3 women are victims and perhaps someday a proper survey will be done. If the DV Industry were not ran by radicals who hate men, but instead skilled professionals who are willing to accept that men can also be victims, then maybe so many women wouldn’t be killed by abusive men, and maybe so many men wouldn’t commit suicide because they see no other option.

Let me close by saying that suicide is a permanent solution to what is often a temporary problem. Suicide doesn’t solve the problem, it prevents the possibility of finding a solution, and there are always solutions. Don’t consider suicide, think of the people you will leave behind, forever wondering why you didn’t come to them for help.

Joe

Missing, Presumed Dead…

I’m reading a story today about how in Kansas, USA, 70 kids are missing from Foster “Care”. I have written about this phenomena in my book about how in Ireland, 500 went “missing” in a decade and many were later traced to brothels around the world.

This topic makes interesting study for the Amateur Sleuths among us and of course the Conspiracy Theorists. Many of these children are “Orphans”, having been successfully alienated from their parents and family. They could “disappear” and the only trace would be a long forgotten “Unsolved Missing Person File” gathering dust in a government office.

The Sleuths would come to the conclusion that these children were trafficked into slavery or prostitution by organised crime gangs. If you look at the case in Ireland of the 500 children in a decade, USA authorities (CIA and State Department), they concluded that Ireland made a perfect hub to traffic children into until these children were sold into slavery and prostitution. The incompetence in Irish Social Services gave traffickers was a perfect base  to “store” these children and the Irish Authorities would be complicit because they would cover up the story and nobody would be the wiser. Enter Wikileaks…..

Wikileaks released thousands of pages of “Diplomatic Cables” of correspondence between the Child and Family Agency, the Gardai (Irish Police), the American Embassy in Dublin and the CIA. It is interesting to note that the government knew all about these “missing” children, but didn’t feel it was in the Public Interest to let us know that Irish State “Care” was being used in this way. It is also interesting to note that the 100 or so Irish Children’s NGO’s didn’t break this story, nor did a single Social Worker out of the 4,500 who work in Child “Protection”. In fact, none of the 10,000 people who work in the Irish “Child Abuse Industry” decided to  blow the whistle on even one of the 500 children who went “missing”.

The Conspiracy Theorists of course came up with more entertaining theories. We heard of Satanic Ritual Abuse, Government Paedophile Rings, and traffickers working for the Child and Family Agency. A few years ago a rumour was spread that my colleagues and I were running a child trafficking operation in Ireland. When the word was spread, my “friends” on FaceBook disappeared overnight which was no great loss. Unfortunately the lies about a colleague had a devastating effect on his family. He ended up being assaulted, his child was bullied at school and the conspiracy theorist who fabricated a fantastic tale actually named the child, and his home and school address. This person is now facing prison and I wont say any more until after he is jailed.

This is why I abhor Conspiracy Theory, innocent people are wrongly accused and harmed as a result. There is no difference between conspiracy theorist social workers who fabricate evidence to remove children and the mentally ill conspiracy theorists who destroy other people to make themselves look good. Anyone who takes a leap of faith and concocts outrageous lies about others deserve to be jailed. When people concoct these stories about “missing” children, they are leaving the door open to more children being abused. If we can explain away “missing” children with fantastic stories of Cabals, Secret Societies and Government Paedophile Rings, nobody will search for the truth. While no evidence of these fantastic stories has ever been proven, what has been proven many times over is that there is a Child Trafficking Industry, and it is clearly ran by Organised Crime Gangs.

Again I have to ask the question; “Shouldn’t Care be safer for Children?”

In the United Kingdom in recent years, we have also seen Child Prostitution, primarily with girls in “Care”. While many of the gangs that were convicted of this were “Muslim”, there have also been many cases of pimps grooming children in “Care”, presumably because they are an easy target. At one point in the U.K. there were 72 Police investigation and there have been many convictions. In one case alone, there were 1,200 girl victims, the youngest being 9 years old. Again, there were coverups and Police and Social Services were very slow to act for fear of offending the Muslim Community. What was interesting was that they chose to label these Child Traffickers as “Muslim”, they could have chosen many other terms. What people focused on was the religion of these vile gangs, and simply forgot that these children were in State “Care”.

I always use the word “Care” advisedly, now you have another example of why “Care” does not benefit children. When the State steps in and tells a parent that the State will now look after the child, there should be an absolute expectation that the child will be safer than had they been left with the parent. The problems we see in Kentucky are no different to London, Dublin, Rome or Amsterdam. All of the problems we see are universal and this is why parents all over the world need to work together against this system. Best Interests doesn’t love any child, parents love their children. Sometimes parents fail in their duties and need help, what they are given instead is punishment. Social  workers and their departments are incentivised to remove children rather than help families.

As long as children are in “Care” and alienated from parents, awful things will happen to them. We need to work together to stop this, the Children’s NGO’s posing as “Charities”, the many “Professionals” working in the Child Abuse Industry and the many criminals who benefit from “easy targets” in “Care” will do nothing to stop the abuse of “Cared For” children, it is up to us to speak out and help them.

You can read the stories here and follow the links. 

Update: I read another interesting piece in Newsweek on how the government (s) have created a method of trafficking children called State “Care”. 

Joe